Remember when Kellen and I did a section hike ending at White Pass? Yes, that one – the one that was both beautiful and horrible, full of green and mountains and Washington magic but also days of demonic mosquitos. Well, I’m back, and this time, I’m solo (so, for my sanity’s sake, hoping for all of that Washington magic and none of the bugs). I’m connecting more Washington miles on the Pacific Crest Trail as I hike from White Pass to Snoqualmie Pass.
DAY 1 (99 TOTAL)
White Pass to NOBO Mile 2317.7, 19.7 miles
1,539.8 Total PCT Miles
The drive up to White Pass from Olympia is misty, the fog and moisture hovering. We pass through Packwood, the streets lined with tents for the massive Labor Day flea market. As we approach the trailhead pullout, the clouds begin to lift, sunshine filtering down through the trees. Yes yes yes. Is there anything better? Blue sky breaking through above, the crispness of a late summer morning in the mountains, sweet Washington miles before me. Emma snaps one quick photo of me (taken after I double-triple-quadruple checked for any stray items) and then I am off.
I scurry across Highway 12.
Ahead of me today are somewhere between 14 and 20 miles. It’s 9:00 am, a late start for me on trail, and I’m unsure of how fast (or slow) I’ll be. I feel good, though, propelled by the excitement of being out here and the beauty of the day. All morning, the trail meanders by lakes and also by poopy looking ponds. Sorry, there’s just no romanticized way to say it. There’s plenty of people out here, too. Families camped at lakes within a couple of miles of the pass, a man leading a mule team further out, a pair of hikers with an older gentleman packing a retro looking pistol.
It’s just about 1:00 o’clock when I decide to stop for lunch. I pull off the trail and descend a short ways through a small tentsite towards the shore of Snow Lake. Flip flops go on, foamie comes out, but before I settle in for food, I plunge into the water. Warm. Clear. Soft ground. I float for a minute before I am scrambling out to give myself time to dry, and to eat. There is nothing, and I really mean nothing, that refreshes me more than a swim on trail. In the distance, just beginning to peek out from behind the trees, is a gigantic smoke plume from the Wildcat Fire. Trail news (i.e. southbound hikers) says there’s still no closures, so I’m mostly just pretending the giant plume doesn’t exist.
My lunch break isn’t long, but it’s enough, and I shoulder my pack before climbing back up to the trail. There is no reason to rush today. No weather to keep an eye on or storms to hide from or even relentless heat to seek shade from. The only constraint is time. Sunset. Darkness. And even then, it’s less of a constraint as it is a hard preference to be snuggled up in camp by the time the woods go black.
Time is at that strange point of late summer, where days no longer wind on gently and endlessly towards 9:30 pm sunsets, yet there’s not quite the rush of fall where darkness creeps earlier and earlier until suddenly daylight is gone by 4:00 pm. The light and time of early September falls somewhere in between the two extremes and I reassure myself that the daylight hours it provides will be plenty.
From the last water source for the day, it’s a bit more of a grind up to where I’ll be camping. At least, it feels that way with the extra weight from all of my water. It’s hard to be bothered by it, though, when I can easily distract myself with the beauty of the sub-alpine meadow and swaying grasses, or by the plume of smoke that is, once I stop ignoring it, looking bigger and bigger.
I’m in camp by 5:30, feeling good but tired enough to not want to race daylight another 2.5-3 miles to the next campsite. Just about 20 miles is a solid day one. Up goes the tent, on goes a jacket, and I pull out my stove for cooking and Kindle for reading as I do. As I sit there cross legged on my foamie, reading and listening to the hiss of water beginning to boil, an occasional hiker will stride by with a quick wave. A few more will roll up to camp as dusk begins to set in and then even into the darkness, but for now, “early” as it is, it is just me. Tis the season for thru-hikers charging towards the finish.
Shortly before 7:00 pm, a ranger descends from the trail above, where he’s kicked a rock off trail (surely rangers aren’t supposed to kick moderately sized rocks off the edge of trails??). He passes on the information that there are still no trail closures and despite the absolutely MEGA plume of smoke, we’re fine. Ah, yes. It’s probably fine. At 7:00 pm, I note that it is still light out. Dusk hovers, the darkness at bay for just a few moments longer. I’m camped on the edge of the forest, just past a stretch of open trail cutting across a grassy hillside, and as the last of the light winks out I crawl into bed and officially finish day one.
DAY 2 (100 TOTAL)
NOBO Mile 2317.7 to 2342.7, 25 miles
1,564.8 Total PCT Miles
The morning is brisk, but I’m efficient. Plus, I’m immediately climbing up and away from where I camped, which burns off the chill. The day is clear, and as I wind around a meadow, I come around the corner to see views of Rainier. I actually gasp. In the soft morning light, it just looks so beautiful and massive impressive and cool.
I arrive at Big Dewey Lake a few minutes before 9:00 am. The word “arrive” is misleading, though, because I don’t intend to stop. I leave the trail for the lakeside to get a quick look. That’s all. It’s too early to get in the water.
Passing through a cluster of green foliage, I find myself taking in the reflectiveness of the water, the vibrancy of color, the sunlight just beginning to touch the lake. Within minutes I am in the water.
Sure, it actually is a bit too cold to comfortably swim about for long; too chilly to really float around. Still, it’s nice. Why would I rush? There is something satisfying about doing it all – stopping to swim, taking lunch breaks, reading, and still walking a good amount of miles each day.
To make sure I do have enough daylight to do the latter, though, I don’t linger TOO long. Once I’m out, I quickly dry, waving hello to the group of college-aged kids walking the muddy shoreline in their (now completely ruined) Birkenstocks. One of many signs that I am close to popping out at Chinook Pass, accessible by a major road and thus swarming with people.
About a mile or two out from my swim, a man heading south gives me a friendly FYI that he just saw a bear up the trail eating berries. I’m not too worried, but my eyes are peeled from there on out. Naturally, I don’t see a single bear. I don’t even see signs of a bear. It makes me think of all the wildlife that has certainly seen me over all the miles I’ve hiked that I will never notice or catch with my own eyes.
Chinook Pass nears. Day hikers begin to crowd the trail and dot the shoreline of each lake I pass. All these people and now, after clear skies, all this hazy smoke.
Once at the pass, I throw trash out and use the bathroom, and then, because there is no reason to linger in a parking lot with no shade – the heat rising up in shimmers from the pavement – I point myself back up to the trail and into the haze. As in the case any time hikers gather (it seems I’ve found a bubble here), wisps of conversation and trail information (or gossip, depending on the day) swirl around me. Word is that people are skipping the section I just came through from White Pass in hopes of avoiding the smoke. It’s ironic, given the smoke here is the worst it’s been since I started yesterday morning (ie: it was nonexistent).
That’s the thing about trail, though. You’re always just having to make decisions in the moment based on the information you have. As it turns out, the section I just came through (White Pass to Chinook Pass) will indeed close the afternoon I get through it…so there was something after all to the skipping of it by those hikers.
The afternoon is smoky. Smoky and hot. I begin to notice tiny flakes of ash landing on my shoulders and pretend that I don’t see it. It’s probably fine, right? Quickly, the cool clear morning fades from memory and my only thought is putting one foot in front of the other as I climb up up up away from Chinook Pass. I cross rocky hillsides and dirt ridgelines before eventually stopping in a cluster of shaded trees for lunch. Nothing feels better than sprawling in the shade right now, freshly shaken electrolytes in my bottle and a tortilla smeared with a random assortment of items.
The hiking after lunch is unremarkable, less because of the actual landscape and more because of the oppressive cage this smoke has created. Onward I walk until I reach that afternoon’s water source, a sneaky little hillside spout that has collected the handful of hikers I’ve been near all day as everyone stops to filter.
I chat with a few people, one commenting that I’m making good time today (I ignore the tone of this comment, which one might call patronizing, and keep my sarcastic Yeah dude imagine that, someone who doesn’t have a backpack that looks like it was made for an ant can actually still hike fast to myself) and after chugging some ice cold and absolutely ~pristine~ water, begin walking again.
I’ve gone less than five minutes when the hikers in front of me wave their poles and point, but I’ve already spotted the clumps of white covering the hillside above the trail. Goats! So many goats! Besides the feat of engineering that was the leaf spout, this is by far the most exciting thing I’ve seen all afternoon. I pause for a moment to watch them climb and scramble further up the hill, amazed at their numbers and the way they cling to rocks and scree. Once they’d ascended even higher up and away from the trail, I continue on.
I’m to camp with at least another hour or more of daylight, but instead of charging onwards like the rest of the PCT hikers, I pull over to a tentsite and decide this is far enough. I’m already veering towards finishing this section early and see no reason for more, especially with a burn scar ahead.
I go about setting up my tent, then begin to cook as the bubble of hikers from the water source walk past into the evening. No one seems to be stopping and I figure I’ll be camped here alone tonight. People often say “I could never do that! I’d be so afraid alone.” Which, I don’t know how else to say this but like…so am I! Not all the time, less so the more I go solo, and it’s mostly nerves more than undiluted fear, but I feel it sometimes.
And I feel it here – those nerves, in these woods, tonight. The woods feel different than where I camped last night. Less welcoming. I’m not exactly a “woo-woo” type of person but the energy is off, somehow. Last night I was camped in a cluster of trees too, but it felt softer. More of a sub-alpine embrace from the green trees and nearby meadow rather than the claustrophobic clearing amidst a dense thicket of scratchy-sounding forest.
Despite the warm day, the temperature begins to drop quickly as night approaches and I crawl into my sleeping bag to read. It’s now the dim light of dusk, and a commotion from what sounds like ravens has me putting down my Kindle, ears straining for what might have sent the birds into a chaotic flight. They seem to be shooting out from the woods. What is going on out there?! As has been the case before, I must quickly decide between looking outside or just accepting my fate from whatever may be going on beyond the “safety” of my tent walls. Obviously I have to look. I’m half expecting to see an animal as I peek my head halfway out, but get a huge start when I see a woman from the trail looking towards my tent.
“Oh hi!” I call out. “I was reading and heard all this commotion.”
“That was me, did you hear me shouting?” Maybe that’s what startled all the birds.
“Umm maybe? I heard all the ravens. What…what were you shouting at?”
“There was an animal. Couldn’t tell exactly but it ran off and didn’t sound like hooves in the underbrush. I think maybe a cougar.” My eyes widen. I knew the vibes were off here.
“Are you going to keep hiking?” I try to ask neutrally but am OBVIOUSLY silently hoping she stays so I do not become a solo sitting duck for a curious cat.
“I was going to keep hiking but now I’m not sure I want to keep going on alone! But I don’t want to cramp your space at all.”
I laugh, then motion her into the tentsite. Like, girl get in here! Set up as close as you want. Dusk begins to turn to darkness as she sets up, and we chat off and on for a bit, even making plans to head out together tomorrow at least until we’ve put a little distance between us and this place (pretending cougars would get, like, bored of us or something and not follow us).
Eventually, we’re both settled into our tents and ready for bed. Noises in the woods and what sounds ~to me~ like chirping mountain lines lure me right to sleep.
Ha, just kidding! I hardly sleep at all.